The postal service has long provided alternatives to the basic first class rates for various classes of mail. For customers willing to wait a little longer for certain types of mail to arrive at a destination, there are third class and fourth class rates. For a customer shipping in bulk there are discounted rates. Additionally, the postal service will grant discounts to customers who are willing to make the flow of mail easier for the postal service.
The rapid growth in computer driven technology in the recent past, has produced better methods and better apparatus for the handling of mail. Thus, the use of zip codes to move the mail has evolved so as to create efficiencies from the expansion of the zip code field and the use of corresponding bar codes. The Post Net bar code is an example of a United States Postal Service (U.S.P.S.) initiative to provide efficient routing of mail pieces through the use of scanning and routing mechanisms that can read a bar code on a mail piece and quickly route that mail piece to its intended destination. In order to encourage its customers to employ the use of correct addressing, Zip +4, and Post Net bar coding, the U.S.P.S. offers discounts that generally pay their customers back for the cost of upgrade in a relatively short period of time. The greater the volumes of mail, the greater the marginal utility to be achieved.
The Post Office currently utilizes automated mail sorters which sort envelopes on the basis of a zip code encoded as an imprinted machine readable bar code. To be acceptable for use, the encoded bar code must meet strict specifications as to size, spacing of parallel bars, and placement upon the envelope. Accordingly, there is a need for accurate, but relatively inexpensive addressing or printing systems that will print bar codes at the same time that they print the legible address.
As the United States Postal Service, together with the postal services of other countries around the world, moves toward more fully automated mail handling in an effort to contain costs while processing ever increasing volumes of mail, automated equipment which sorts and processes mail on the basis of machine readable postal codes, such as the "zip code" or other forms of postal coding, play an ever more significant role. In the United States, Postal Service regulations provide for a "Postnet" bar code which represents the five, nine, or eleven digit zip code of the destination address in a machine readable form.
Systems have been used or proposed to meet the need to produce mail pieces imprinted with the Postnet bar code, and to enable mailers to obtain the benefit of the discounts offered for such mail. One such system is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,858,907, for a SYSTEM FOR FEEDING ENVELOPES FOR SIMULTANEOUS PRINTING OF ADDRESSES AND BAR CODES, issued to Eisner et al. on Aug. 22, 1989. This patent discloses a system for printing envelopes with addresses, zip codes, and corresponding bar codes. The system is controlled by a computer which includes software for converting a zip code included in the address into bar code form and then adding the bar code representation to the material to be printed on the envelope.
Another example of the art is found in U.S. Pat. No. 5,326,181 for an ENVELOPE ADDRESSING SYSTEM ADAPTED TO SIMULTANEOUSLY PRINT ADDRESSES AND BAR CODES; issued on Jul. 5, 1994 to Eisner et al. This patent teaches a method of addressing substrates with a human readable address containing a zip code and a bar code corresponding to the zip code. The method utilizes a computer and comprises several steps. These steps include: receiving in the computer a plurality of addresses, with pre-existing zip code information contained in each as complete address data, and requiring no manual inputting or identification; automatically scanning the address data in the computer to find the pre-existing zip code; automatically converting, in the computer, the pre-existing zip code into a line of corresponding bar code; and, essentially simultaneously printing the complete address, including zip code information and corresponding bar code, on a substrate, under control of the computer so that the substrate produced has human readable zip code and machine readable bar code information thereon.
Both of the Eisner et al. patents (U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,858,907 and 5,326,181) address the specific need of mailers to reduce costs by utilizing a Post Net bar code when printing to a mail piece.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,377,120 for an APPARATUS FOR COMMINGLING AND ADDRESSING MAILPIECES, issued Dec. 27, 1994, to Humes et al., is concerned primarily with preparing a plurality of pre-printed, unaddressed, non-alike mail pieces from pre-determined sources into grouped bundles organized in a manner to receive low postal rates. Indeed, Humes et al. goes on to state that: "Due to automation, lower postal rates are available for mail pieces which are addressed with machine readable addressing such as bar codes or the like . . . a minimum number of pieces must be in each grouping to qualify for the lower postal rates."
An example of a typical prior art system can be found in FIG. 2, herein. In FIG. 2, an example of the flow of steps in the prior art method for the coding of address records is shown. The flow begins at step 60 when an address list is prepared for use in a mailing. The address list contains one or more address records and its format can be any of the commercially available formats that is appropriate to the task. The method advances to step 62 where an individual address record is read from input address list 64 before advancing to step 66 where the address and zip code lines are parsed by the system, and then the rules and algorithms for determining a bar code that corresponds to the address are obtained from postal service database 68 to produce a corresponding bar code. A new record consisting of the old address record plus a corresponding bar code, if one was determined, is written to output list 72 at step 70.
Once the new address record has been written to the output list, the method advances to step 74 and queries as to whether or not the record just read and re-written is the LAST RECORD? If the answer to the query at step 74 is "NO," then the method advances to step 76 and proceeds to step 62 to read the next record on input address list 64. If, however, the response to the query at step 74 is "YES," then the method will generate at step 78, CASS report 80 for the output list; the CASS report is further discussed hereinbelow. After generation of CASS report 80, the method advances to step 82 to complete and then exit from the coding sequence.
Thus, while Humes et al. offers an apparatus to commingle address lists and produce grouped bundles for delivery at the lowest postal rates, and the Eisner patents detail the benefits of bar code use, these patents are representative of a short-coming that exists in the prior art with respect to the use of address lists.
Address lists are comprised of address records. Each record contains a number of elements that are converted to a machine readable bar code using postal service rules (algorithms). Invariably in large lists, there are a number of address records on the address list which contain data that can not be converted to a usable bar code. The use of the Post Net code, or the various coding schemes of the different postal services, is only as efficient as the address list to which the coding is applied. Thus, a mass mailing that utilizes an address list with addresses that are not convertible to the proper bar code lacks efficiency, because the separation of the mail pieces will still be required to qualify for the lower postal rates.
Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus for generating a 100% coded list that will allow shippers using the postal service to get the greatest possible benefit from the discounts that can be applied to a mailing derived from such a list.